Sooo Many Plans

Well, The Golden Shower One is coming together in theory now, and I think it will be very full of swishness indeed. My idea now is to take my rather battered and torn old Japanese bolt-on necked Les Paul, route it our for a couple of P90 soapbars, replace the tuners with some that work and rewire it with some not clicky and scratchy pots, switches and wires. So it is a working guitar.

After that the fun starts. As I mentioned before I am planning to do a gold top, but with a twist, as I am going to use gold leaf which is quite a job, but I think well worth the effort. I've had some great advice and pointers from the sooperb Wez Venables who has done some wicked gilding on some of his guitars. God knows I'm not one to nick other people's ideas (intentionally anyway) but standing on the shoulders of giants, and all that, well, I'll see where I end-up.

Other than that, I've got a trapeze tailpiece, which will hopefully work well, and am intending to grab another small multi-fx unit to surface mount on the guitar somehow. I've talked before about putting the wiring on the outside for this, and I still think that is the way to go, though maybe with a couple of wrinkles. Depends how good my routering is really.

So there we are, should be fun and challenging in equal measures, and it has a deadline, so hopefully that will 'galvanise me' somewhat. get me out of my recent stupor.

In a similar yet completely different vein, I've decided to make myself a guitar that I can play. As I keep mentioning, I've got a bit of a problem with my hand which means that I'm struggling to play for any meaningful period of time. I did however find out that guitars with quite chunky necks are better for me than more modern sizes. Anyway, I fancy a Les Paul, but haven't got a couple of grand to buy some sort of historic replica, so...necessity being inventions old bag, I'm going to be pragmatic.

As luck would have it then, I came across somebody flogging a body and neck combo, that has been generally battered and partially stripped that could fit the bill. It is a nice old '80s Burny copy - one of the much acclaimed 'lawsuit' models, but full Les Paul weight, the 'right' headstock and everything else. I like the idea that it is battered to be honest, and in the main I think I'll leave it that way, apart from that I'd like to give it a kind of aged gold top finish. Proper nitro paint, but I'd like it to look the part so that it is cracking and everything else.

As it will hopefully be 'my' guitar, I'm planning to put some good PAF pickups in there, maybe Bare Knuckle Peter Greens, or some Gibson '59s, or Catswhisker PGs, I'll have to see. And then I'm going to push the boat out and maybe get some Fake 58 parts (tuners, pickup rings, wiring etc.). Well, we'll have to see. But I think I'm at the point now where i want that guitar in the corner that I play consistently, rather than having 15 lay around the place that I never get around to making the most of. Obviously, it will never work out like that, but if nothing else making my own appeals more than buying off the peg, so there we are. I can hardly preach the joys of one-offs and then buy something mass-produced, now, can I?

I have to admit that it seems odd thinking that an Eighties guitar is thirty years old, mind you, I must be getting on a bit meself after all.